Every One Is Shining
by struckbylightening
Summary: “Every one is shining, and they’re shining for us, Kate.” Kate and Abby take the night off and contemplate life, everything, and more importantly, stars. Oneshot, -not- femmeslashy.


_A/N: Just a quick fic today to re-celebrate my love for NCIS. I don't intend it to be femmeslashy at all, but I guess you can read into Abby and Kate's friendship as far as you would like._

_Credit for the quotes goes to Les Brown, Jose Marti, Galileo Galilei, Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare, and credit to Fall Out Boy's song, '__Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends' for inspiring this fic. Somehow…_

* * *

**_Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars._**

* * *

Kate Todd needed some time out. Life was, as usual a crazy muddle of work, lack of love life and attempting to find time to do those little unimportant things like, oh, eating and sleeping. It would seem that the whole team was struggling with the same issues as she was. So the sight of a surprisingly cheerful Abby bouncing back into the bullpen at NCIS one late autumn afternoon as the leaves were swirling down in torrents of red and orange and she waited alone for McGee, Tony and Gibbs to return from a callout. After offering the forensic scientist a puzzled look as to why she was so cheery, Abby had explained

"I called Gibbs, asked him to give us the night off. You look exhausted and to be honest, I really need to stay of the Caffpows something that, you might be surprised is very hard to do when you're stuck in a lab all by yourself trying to analyse tiny samples of residue from a gun that could have, or could not have killed a man!"

_Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive._

It was at that moment that Kate almost wished McGee there. Abby was clearly stressed and surprisingly enough it was the computer geek who could indefinitely calm her down, and keep her calm. Even so, it had been a shock to everyone when the two had announced their engagement (with the exception of Gibbs of whom McGee had asked permission to ask Abby to marry him. He knew full well that if he was going to be a permanent part of the scientist's life, the last thing he wanted to do was upset the older agent.)

She would have had Abby if she wanted to come back to hers and unwind with a glass of wine, but it was fairly obvious that Abs had other plans.

"Meet me out by the hearse in five then? I've got something I want us to do."

As Abby walked away, Kate felt nervous. What on earth could the Goth want them to do so much that she had badgered Gibbs to let the two of them have the night off. Abby could be a little creepy sometimes; to be honest, Kate had never spent anytime with any other Goths and she didn't even know what was normal behaviour for them and anyway; Abby slept in a coffin for God's sake! What if her plan for a relaxing evening was a voodoo ritual or something equally… weird? Of course, as Kate finished tidying away her papers, filing the ones that had to be filed and shoving the rest into the third drawer of her desk, she new that she'd go along with whatever Abby had got planned. After all. What are best friends for?

* * *

_I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.__  
_

She needn't have worried about voodoo and dark magic. As Abby forced the hearse up the last few metres of the hill, Kate realised where they were headed. They had driven for almost an hour to the outskirts of the city before reaching this hill. Parking the car, Abby removed several blankets, and two thermos flasks from the trunk of her car.

Star gazing; that was all it was; an innocent glance at the world that existed, or had existed, around them. No voodoo, nor weirdness. Just good old fashioned beauty that could be found in the stars. Suddenly Kate felt her longing for that glass of wine, trashy television, a magazine and an early night sinking away. After all it was perfect out here.

The two of them clambered on top the bonnet of the car after Abby had lain down the blanket for the two of them to lie on, before pulling a second blanket over the top of the two bodies. It was fall after all, and the cold would soon be setting in of they didn't keep themselves warm. They lay in silence for a few moments, before Abby began pointing out some of the constellations. Kate lay beside her, in complete silence. She could have told Abby that she already knew the vast majority of the constellations, or at least, she knew all of the ones that had been pointed out to her. When Abby had exhausted her knowledge of the stars she rolled onto her side, looking as though she was about to fall to sleep and, it was only then that her companion spoke.

"Do you know what Oscar Wilde said about people and the stars, Abby? He said that '_We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars_.'" The forensic scientist opened her eyes, after hearing this, grinning before rolling onto her back. Kate couldn't have said how long they lay there in silence. It could have been hours, she would have said days, except that they were definitely still on the dark side of the sun…

"Every one is shining, and they're shining for us, Kate." Abby exclaimed as she gestured wildly in the direction of the stars twinkling malignantly against the velvet purple backdrop of the dusk sky.

Kate raised her head leaning backwards so that the stars came into her vision, allowing a couple of chocolate locks to spill down her nape. Shivering with the cold, she reached over for a thermos flask, ensuring that she did in fact pick up the plain red flask, rather than the black one emblazoned with red skulls that belonged to her Goth companion. Taking a few warming sibs of the scalding coffee, that burnt the back of her throat, the girl looked over to her friend, "You know what, Abs? I think you might just be right."

* * *

_It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves._


End file.
